Molisa, a lecturer in accounting at
Victoria University, will be leading the open forum at the
‘In the Eye of the Storm’ Pacific climate change
conference, which starts today. Dr. Molisa is also the MC of
the conference.

“One of the reasons we call this …
conference ‘In the Eye of the Storm’,” Molisa says,
“is that the Pacific is one of the places where the
impacts of climate change will be most severely felt and
first felt. We’re going to lose islands – we’re going
to lose whole countries – because of rising sea levels …
The Pacific is one of the most vulnerable areas to these
super storms and extreme weather events.”

The
conference, which runs Monday-Wednesday this week, will
provide an unconventional look at climate change. “It’s
bringing amazing leaders and frontline activists from
throughout the Pacific together,” says Molisa. The
conference will discuss not only the immediate causes and
effects of climate change but also the systemic issues
behind it.

Though a lecturer in accounting, Molisa
enlivens a traditionally “dry” field by “following the
numbers” within social and economic frameworks, and looks
at climate change through the lens of “the economic
system powering it”.

Most people view climate change and
poverty as completely unrelated issues, but Molisa sees them
both as the byproducts of a broken system. “We can’t
treat climate change as this standalone issue that’s
separate from the mass extinction that’s going on in the
oceans, that’s separate from deepening inequality.”
These things all directly result from “this economic
system which is at the same time powering catastrophic
climate change”.

He points to the recently signed
Trans-Pacific Partnership Agreement (TPPA) as an example of
these systemic flaws, arguing that its provisions – such
as those that allow companies to sue government over laws
that damage their profits – could make it difficult to
impose environmental regulations that are in the public’s
interest. The TPPA, he says, “undermines our ability to
respond effectively to these climate crises”.

Molisa is
dissatisfied with the current volume and intensity of the
national climate change discussion. “Our language isn’t
up to the task,” he says. “This is a life and death
issue, and yet the language of most politicians and public
policy-makers is not life and death, it’s wait and see,
incremental change, and it’s [using] very sanitised
language.”

Molisa believes the lexicon for mainstream
discussion has been stripped of the appropriate radical
language. Words like “ecological holocaust”,
“ecocide” and “biocide” should be part of
society’s working vocabulary. “Actions are predicated on
our understanding of reality, so language is fundamental,”
he says. “It rained in December in the Arctic – you
know, rain! That should be world news! … What’s the
thing before you have a WTF moment? This is a
crisis!”

The conference takes place against a backdrop
of international efforts to reduce carbon emissions, most
recently the COP 21 Paris Climate Conference, where much of
the international community pledged to reduce their carbon
emissions in an attempt to limit global warming to a further
1.5 degrees. Molisa applauds these recent efforts but still
finds them “woefully inadequate”, noting that experts
project that a catastrophic 2.7-3.5 degree rise could still
occur even if all the current pledges are met. “It’s a
start, but it’s only aspirational,” he warns. “We are
pushing ahead at our current trajectory at breakneck
speed.” Drastic action is needed before climate change
reaches “runaway” levels – if indeed it hasn’t
already, he says.

The ‘In the Eye of the Storm’
conference will look not only at the problems but also the
solutions. While Pacific Island nations wield relatively
little sway, they are not powerless in the international
climate change discussion. As well as continuing to fight
for tougher international standards – and, indeed, their
survival – at international summits, the people of the
Pacific, Molisa says, must be “the moral voices at the
forefront of climate discussions around the
world”.

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